drunk--but, they all seemed one or the other--came forward with the black
flag, and gave it a wave or two. After that, the Portuguese captain
called out in shrill English, "I say you! English fools! Open the gate!
Surrender!"

As we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which I didn't
understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English rascal with the
patch (who had stepped out when he began), said it again in English. It
was only this. "Boys of the black flag, this is to be quickly done. Take
all the prisoners you can. If they don't yield, kill the children to
make them. Forward!" Then, they all came on at the gate, and in another
half-minute were smashing and splitting it in.

We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped many of
them, too; but, their very weight would have carried such a gate, if they
had been unarmed. I soon found Sergeant Drooce at my side, forming us
six remaining marines in line--Tom Packer next to me--and ordering us to
fall back three paces, and, as they broke in, to give them our one little
volley at short distance. "Then," says he, "receive them behind your
breastwork on the bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of
the cursed cockchafers through the body."

We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked them at the
breastwork. However, they broke over it like swarms of devils--they
were, really and truly, more devils than men--and then it was hand to
hand, indeed.

We clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those two
ladies--always behind me--were steady and ready with the arms. I had a
lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for a broadsword that Miss